


Nothing Remains Buried

by apolesen



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alcohol, Angst, Cardassia dealing with its past, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Obsidian Order, Panic Attacks, Parmak is better at taking care of Garak than taking care of himself, Post-Canon Cardassia, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, mentions of dead bodies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-10
Updated: 2019-12-10
Packaged: 2021-02-17 21:48:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21750268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apolesen/pseuds/apolesen
Summary: Castellan Garak is called away one night – where he does not say. The next day, the news of a gruesome find from the old regime spreads. Across the Union, the public has to face Cardassia's past, and in a bedroom in the Castellan's residence, Kelas Parmak has to face his lover's.
Relationships: Elim Garak/Kelas Parmak
Comments: 6
Kudos: 30





	Nothing Remains Buried

**Author's Note:**

> This fic happened because of a single line in "Second Skin". Thank you to illogicalbroccoli who betaed. 
> 
> Trigger warnings: Mental health issues, PTSD, alcohol as a coping mechanism, discussions of torture, deadly violence, dead bodies, tactics of totalitarian governments, ritual self-harm (in the form of Cardassian death rituals). 
> 
> A note on chronology: the Cardassian calendar starts in 1616 CE, meaning that Union Year 755 is 2371 CE, when the events of "The Die is Cast" take place.

It was getting late. The words on Parmak’s PADD had started to go out of focus. He rubbed his eyes under his glasses and looked over at Garak. He was still absorbed in his own book. Parmak stifled a yawn. It was time to turn the lights off. He was just about to speak when he heard it – a cautious knock against the door. 

Garak looked up, suddenly alert. To anyone who did not know him intimately, he looked only attentive, but Parmak caught the signs of concern. Without looking back at his bedmate, Garak got out of bed. Gently, he pulled the curtain on his side. The curtain-rings barely jangled together. Parmak sat hidden from view, straining his ears to hear. 

The door slid opened. 

‘Yes?’ Garak said quietly. 

‘I apologise, Castellan, but the minister of the interior is here. It cannot wait.’ 

‘Do I have time to put on a suit?’ 

‘Yes, sir.’ 

‘Show Minister Torsat into the blue parlour. Offer her tea. I will be there in five minutes.’ 

‘Yes, sir.’ 

The door closed again. Parmak heard Garak’s bare feet against the floor as he approached. The bed-curtain pulled aside again. Garak smiled sadly. 

‘I’m afraid I’ve been called away.’ 

Parmak found his throat oddly tight.

‘Do you think it is serious?’ 

Garak sighed. 

‘I can’t say, but I would expect at least two ministers to come to see me if civil war had broken out.’ 

‘Unless Minister Torsat is the only one still loyal,’ Parmak answered. It was a morbid game, but right now, it felt comforting. 

Garak snorted and crossed to the wooden valet. 

‘I doubt it. Torsat would defect before Rokan would.’ 

Parmak could not think of anything to say. He watched in silence as Garak dressed. He felt acutely aware of the indentation where Garak had been lying until recently. 

‘I don’t know how long I’ll be.’ 

‘I understand,’ Parmak said. He did. State-affairs had to come first. It did not change the feeling of resentment towards that fact. Garak must have sensed it. He did up the last fastenings of his jacket and went over to Parmak’s side of the bed. Parmak reached out his hand. Garak took it between his and kissed it. 

‘Don’t let it keep you up all night,’ Parmak said softly. Garak smiled. 

‘I can make no such guarantees.’ He leaned down. They kissed. All too soon, Garak straightened up. ‘Duty calls.’ 

Parmak forced a smile. Only when Garak was out of the door did he put back his head and let out his breath in frustration. He allowed himself a moment of indulgence. Then he got out of bed. He smoothed down the sheets on his side and shook out the pillow. With the most obvious signs of his presence erased, he collected his book and went through the door leading to the adjacent room. Its unlived-in air was not a surprise. Even if this was where Parmak officially stayed, wall to wall with the Castellan’s bedchamber, he only stayed here when Garak was away. The bedsheets felt stiff and cold as he got in under them. He lay awake, listening for Garak returning.

⁂

Parmak did not see Garak that morning. He was not even sure that he was in the residence. On the way to his practice, he asked his driver if he knew.

‘No idea, sir,’ Rontar admitted as he manoeuvred the skimmer through the gates. Parmak was not surprised - there was no reason for someone not assigned to the castellan’s person to know his movements. In the hierarchy of the residence, Rontar was quite junior. Officially, he was Parmak’s bodyguard, as CIB disliked the idea of him not having one, but the work he did was really that of a chauffeur. When Parmak was at his practice, Rontar would spend the day sitting in the break-room, reading enigma tales and drinking endless cups of tea made by the nurses. Parmak did not speak for the rest of the drive, but sent a brief message to Garak, wishing him good morning. 

The clinic was as busy as ever. The routine was familiar in its constant newness. The variation was one of the things he relished about general practice. Each day, he saw the entirety of Cardassian life: stretching from its start as only an embryonic disc, cushioned by albumen and yolk, to its end, which could sometimes be delayed, but was always inevitable.

But even as he worked, the thought of Garak’s night-time departure was just at the back of his mind. During his lunch break, he checked and found that the message he had sent had not yet been read. He sent another one, but got no response. 

It was mid-afternoon when he stepped into the break-room and found three nurses and Rontar leaning over a comm. Sound was pouring out of the small device’s speaker, transfixing the four of them. 

‘What’s going on?’ Parmak asked. They all looked up. Lazal, who was sitting down and holding the comm, answered: 

‘They’ve found a mass-grave in Rogarin province.’ 

Parmak rounded the table to look over her shoulder. One of the cast-channel was playing. On this small a device, Parmak struggled to read the text rolling across the screen, but now when he was closer, he could make out the reporter’s voice. 

‘ _…fifty miles from Kontari City, where the search for rudinium ore has been underway for about a year. The first reports that something was amiss came early this morning, when locals in the nearby village of Khoma noticed the smell of decomposition._ ’ 

The image shifted from a stock picture of the ore-extraction facility to footage of an old woman in traditional Kontar garb. The ‘cast had judged her dialect so hard to understand that they had added a voice-over. 

‘ _It smelled like death. I know that smell – I lived through the Fire. We never knew there were bodies down there! I have lived her my whole life. I never knew!_ ’ 

Even if the volume of her voice was turned down, it was clear that she started crying. Parmak felt a twinge of compassion. 

Another cut, and the anchor appeared instead. 

‘ _Emergency services are on the scene. Little is yet known, but there are unverified reports that employees of the Ministry of the Interior have been seen in the vicinity._ ’ 

‘What could it be from?’ asked nurse Gota.

‘Perhaps it’s from the plague epidemic after the Fire?’ Rontar suggested. Mera, who was the oldest of the nurses, shook her head. 

‘We buried the dead in trenches, not mass-graves, and all the bodies were reburied individually.’ 

‘Then perhaps it’s from Dukat’s purges…’ 

Parmak had had enough. 

‘Gota, Lazal, your break was over five minutes ago,’ he said. ‘Nurse Lazal, there are samples that need to be sent to the lab. Nurse Gota, would you please show the next patient into my office? Nurse Mera, when you’re ready, Mrs Nostar is here to have blood drawn.’ 

The four of them looked stunned. The times they had heard Parmak use that tone were few. Mera recovered first. 

‘Of course, Doctor.’ She nudged Gota and tapped Lazal on the shoulder before making for the door. Lazal turned off the comm and put it in her pocket before hurrying after her colleague. Rontar shuffled back to his usual chair, looking embarrassed. Parmak left, his thoughts of tea completely forgotten. He felt guilty about speaking so coldly to his employees, but the queasiness of the subject was worse. It felt morbid to stand around and speculate about such things. 

But it was not really about that. It was the inconsistencies in the reporting that had put him on edge. The woman had said it had “smelt like death”, but any of the events in the past where people were buried in mass graves were far too long ago for the smell to be that bad.

Then there were the unconfirmed rumours. Employees of the Ministry of the interior. That was Minister Torsat’s people. What about the mass-grave had been so urgent that it required the Castellan’s attention in the middle of the night?

⁂

He tried to not think about it for the rest of the day, but it was not easy. Ideas and images flitted by as he did his work. He examined a student who was recovering from a broken arm, while in his mind he could see a group of Federation aid workers being buried by their Cardassian killers. He reassured a nervous mother-to-be, but all he could think of was a forgotten burial-trench from after the Fire, each corpse’s identity lost. He packed up his things at the end of the day, unable to shake the thought of dissidents being taken out and shot at the grave-side. Those thoughts continued as his skimmer drove through Tarlak, to the Castellan’s residence. He only woke from them when Rontar stopped to show the guards their passes. When the skimmer stopped and the driver opened the door, Parmak caught sight of Akret coming down the steps.

‘Good evening, Akret.’ 

‘Good evening, Doctor Parmak,’ she said. ‘The Castellan asked to see you in his office as soon as you arrived.’

Parmak nodded. 

‘I’ll go at once,’ he said. ‘Unless your presence is required?’ 

Akret looked a little relived. 

‘I think the Castellan would prefer it if it were just you, Doctor.’ 

Parmak nodded his goodbyes and set off. He had wanted to lie down and rest – the pain shooting through his legs made his steps slow and unsteady – but he knew that Garak would not ask for him to come to his office unless it was something important.

The CIB man at the office door nodded to him and stepped aside, allowing him to present his thumb-print to the door. It opened.

At first, Parmak could not see Garak anywhere. Then he heard his voice: 

‘Kelas?’ It was half a question, half an acknowledgement. Parmak looked over at the couch. Now he realised that there were a pair of feet settled on the armrest. 

‘Elim.’ 

Garak did not move to acknowledge him as he approached. He was lying on his back with a hand over his eyes. He was still wearing the suit Parmak had seen him put on last night. His skin had a sickly paleness to it. 

Parmak sat down on the chair beside the couch, no doubt placed there for him. Gently, he took Garak’s hand from his face. His eyelids tightened, trying to shut out the light. 

‘Headache?’ Parmak said softly. 

‘Mm.’ Garak put his free hand over his eyes now and rubbed his nose. 

‘How long have you had it?’ 

‘A few hours.’ 

‘You could have called me.’ Parmak had expected him to respond to that, but nothing came. It was usually a familiar ritual – Garak claimed he was fine, Parmak disagreed and admonished him, Garak told him he was too protective, Parmak told him he needed to take better care of himself, Garak said Cardassia was more important and he could not stop because of insignificant discomforts, Parmak gave him a small lecture about how things that Garak said “were nothing” could be warning signs of life-threatening conditions. 

But today, pain had mellowed him. 

‘Did you get any sleep last night?’ Parmak asked, turning to place his medkit on the nearby table. 

‘I dozed for an hour or so.’ 

‘Have you eaten?’

Garak moved his hand back to his forehead and watched him through half-closed eyes. 

‘I tried. I couldn’t keep anything down.’ 

‘Are you still feeling nauseous?’ 

‘Yes.’ 

‘Any difficulty breathing? Chest pains?’ 

Garak nodded and winced at the pain from moving. 

‘On and off.’ 

Parmak turned back to him. 

‘Let’s have a look.’ 

He coaxed Garak out of his jacket. It was a sign of how sorry a state he was in that he did not grumble. As the portable haemo-analyser worked through a sample of blood, looking for evidence of poison, Parmak examined him. He could find nothing out of the ordinary, and the results for the blood test were clear. He was turning off the medical scanner when Garak said:

‘Nothing?’ 

‘Nothing,’ Parmak repeated and smiled. ‘This is a case of emotional catalepsy, caused or made worse by lack of sleep and stress.’ 

Garak sighed and sank back onto the sofa. 

‘It has not been a restful day, to put it lightly.’ 

Parmak hesitated to ask. 

‘Does it have anything to go with the mass-grave in Rogarin?’

Garak opened his eyes. 

‘You heard about that?’ 

‘It’s on the ‘casts. I found my entire staff watching it.’ 

Garak did not answer. He was gripping his forehead again, as if he was trying to squeeze out the pain. Parmak put aside his curiosity. It would have to wait. 

‘I prescribe a mild antodynic, a hot bath and a light dinner, as well as plenty of sleep.’ 

He caught sight of a brief smile on Garak’s lips. 

‘If you say so, dear doctor.’ 

‘I do.’ He stroked Garak’s hair, and felt a little of the tension release. Then he turned to his medkit again and took out a hypo. ‘I would also recommend a lighter workload over the next day or two…’ 

‘…But you know that is out of the question,’ Garak said. Parmak sighed and slipped an ampoule into the hypospray. 

‘Yes. But I recommend it nevertheless.’ 

Garak chuckled.

‘Perhaps one of these days, it’ll work.’ He pushed himself up, pausing mid-motion to get his bearings. 

‘Could you delegate some part of what might have set this off?’ 

‘That’s quite impossible.’ He held still as Parmak put a hand on his shoulder and administered the hypo. A moment after the medicine entered his blood-stream, Garak sighed with relief. Parmak handed him his jacket and started packing away his things. 

‘Can you tell me anything about what triggered it?’

Garak looked up from the fastenings of his jacket, gaze both earnest and entertained. 

‘State secrets, my dear.’ But it sounded unconvincing. Garak had already said he had been kept busy by the Rogarin situation – he knew that Parmak could put that together. 

They walked together to the living quarters of the residence. Once there, Garak assured him he could prepare the bath himself and left him to speak to the cook about an appropriately light dinner. Parmak had meant to sit down and read once that was done, but the draw of the ‘casts were too strong. He turned the volume setting down before calling it up on the room’s stationary console.

‘ _The elements of the ceiling-support are distinctive,_ ’ the man on the screen said. ‘ _That means we can date the structure to the last century, and we can be certain about the origin of the design._ ’ 

‘ _And what is that?_ ’ 

‘ _This type of ceiling-beam was commissioned specifically by the Cardassian state from Union year 706._ ’ 

Had he stumbled into some kind of architecture program? Parmak wondered. But no, this was clearly the news set. The scrolling text on the screen caught his eye. "Iᴍᴀɢᴇ ᴏғ Rᴏɢᴀʀɪɴ ᴍᴀss Gʀᴀᴠᴇ Lᴏᴄᴀᴛɪᴏɴ Lᴇᴀᴋᴇᴅ." The camera zoomed out and was showing the display behind the interviewee and the anchor. On it was a picture taken from above, seemingly from the level of the ceiling. The bare walls plunged downwards. The centre of the image was pixelated, but it was still possible to make out the outline of bodies. 

Parmak sat down. His whole body was shaking. Tears blurred his vision. Sightlessly, he reached out and turned off the sound. Through the mist of tears, he watched the architectural expert point out details in the picture. Where the rest of the world was blurred, the pixelated area seemed sharp as glass. His heart thumped in his chest, harder and harder. The beams of the structure were state-designed… 

‘Kelas?’

He turned around. Garak was standing behind him, hair still wet from the bath. When he saw Parmak’s face, he frowned with worry. Then his gaze flitted to the screen behind him. His face fell. 

Parmak swallowed. It was a struggle, like a hand was pushing at his throat. Garak sighed. 

'I must talk to my aides,’ he said casually. ‘They should know better than to not inform me of media developments.’ 

‘This _is_ it, then?’ Parmak said. ‘The mass grave?’ 

‘Yes,’ Garak said steadily, ‘inasmuch as it can be called a grave.’ 

‘You know what it is.' 

‘I was informed of it minutes after the drill went through the ceiling. I have not thought about anything else in the past twenty-six hours.’ 

Parmak breath shook now. A heady mixture of anger and shock drove him forward. 

‘No, you knew about it before then.’ 

Garak’s face did not change. He did not speak. 

‘Tell me what it is.’ 

‘I can’t.’ 

‘Elim, _tell me_. Please. That’s not a mass grave – it’s a… an underground chamber of some kind. They’re saying it was built by the Cardassian state. I need to know.’ 

Garak’s shoulders slumped. 

‘Turn that off,’ he said wearily and sat down. It took Parmak aback for a moment, but he turned off the ‘cast and faced him. Garak had closed his eyes and looked for a moment like the headache might have returned. Then he opened his eyes, revealing a look of strange honesty. 

'The Obsidian Order never got rid of anything. Every single thing that was confiscated was saved. It did not matter if it was part of an investigation. If it passed into the Order’s hands, the Order kept it.’ He looked away for a moment, then back at Parmak. ‘The same is true of people. Whenever a person died in Order custody, they were… archived. Ticket-stubs, identity cards, jewellery, clothes, bodies. All of it treated the same. There were no exceptions.’ 

Parmak tried to understand what he was saying. 

‘This is the Order’s… meat-locker?’ 

‘One of many,’ Garak said. ‘This one contains about ten thousand bodies. They were kept in a stasis field, but it must have failed. I think the mining team must have damaged a generator sometime in the past week. Decomposition started setting in. When they went through the ceiling, the oxygen-rich air sped up the decay.’ 

Parmak found himself unable to speak for a moment. 

‘If you knew, you could have told someone. Have them excavated, or at least told the people who lived there…’

Garak cut him off.

‘I knew that such places existed, not where they were. Off-site facilities were only connected by transporter. I don’t think even Tain knew the locations.’ 

‘How many more are there?’ 

He shrugged. 

‘How many people did the Order kill? How many homes did it raid? I don’t think all the storage facilities are on Cardassia Prime, or the entire planet would have been hollowed out.’ 

People on world upon world were walking over the bodies of the Order’s victims. He might have walked over them, lived over them… 

‘Kelas, you’re hyperventilating.’ 

Garak reached out. Parmak pulled his arm away, out of his grip. Garak paled. 

‘I had nothing to do with this…’ 

‘But you _did_.’ It came out as a shout. ‘You were high up in the Order. And not because Tain put you there. You proved yourself. You killed some of those people, and you ordered the death of others.’ 

Garak’s jaw tightened, but all he said was: 

‘I did.’

Parmak scrambled for his cane and heaved himself to his feet. Even with the support, he felt about to fall. Garak stood up. He reached out to steady him, but Parmak pulled away.

‘Don’t touch me.’ 

The hurt was etched into Garak’s face, but he did not make a second attempt. He stepped back and let Parmak pass. 

Parmak locked the door between the bedrooms after him. He knew that it could be over-ridden, but at least he had tried. Now, away from Garak’s gaze, he felt how much he was shaking. His knees felt ready to buckle. With one hand on the back of a chair and the other on his cane, he edged towards the bed. When he sank onto it, the tears came back. He covered his mouth and wept like he had not wept for a long time. 

⁂

The next morning, a servant appeared with a breakfast tray that Parmak had not asked for. He ate grudgingly, resenting this attempt at a reconciliatory gesture. He had barely slept, haunted by the things he had learned last night. He had thought of friends who had disappeared. Efet had not been seen for years when Parmak came back to the Capital after his time in the labour camp. He had asked around, even venturing into some places that his parole forbade him to enter, but everyone he spoke to either shrugged or refuse to speak. Was his body among the ones they’d found? Was he in some other storage unit, still kept pristine after over twenty years by stasis fields and coolers? Thelan, his fellow dissident of so many years, had been arrested at the same time as him, but Parmak had found no record of his execution. Perhaps he had died from the torture and been stuffed away in the same way their confiscated belongings had been.

That was how _he_ would have ended up, had he died during his torture. He would have been bundled up and put on a slab, not allowed to decompose in the ground but caught in the early stage of rigor mortis for as long as the machinery was kept running. 

He was about to spiral down further into that thought when the door-chime brought him back. The sound made his stomach sink, but he could not ignore it. Pulling himself up in bed, he called: 

‘Enter.’ 

He felt a wave of relief when Akret, not Garak, entered.

‘Good morning,’ he said. Akret stepped in, hands on her back. 

‘Good morning, Doctor. The Castellan sent me to ask if there is anything you need.’ 

Parmak knew by the way she looked at him that he had failed to keep his face under control. 

‘No,’ he said. ‘Nothing.’ 

Akret nodded in acknowledgement, looking awkward now. 

‘The Castellan also told me to ask, if you said no, if you were quiet sure.’ 

In the midst of his distress, Parmak felt himself smiling. It did not last long, though. What Garak was trying to make up for was too horrific. At least he had had the sense not to come himself. 

‘Nothing,’ Parmak repeated. ‘Was there anything else?’ 

‘Yes. Castellan Garak is making a statement at eleven o’clock.’ 

‘Thank you.’ 

Seeing that there were no other answers to be had, Akret excused herself and left. Parmak sank against the headboard. He was supposed to be present during all speeches in case of something happened. “Something” was not even hypothetical. Parmak remembered all too well Alon Ghemor bleeding out under his hands. He had stood off to the side during that speech, wanting to seem less obtrusive, but it had taken him almost a minute to fight his way through the melée after the shot had been fired. He often wondered how different things would have been – for Cardassia and for him himself – if he had stood closer to the stage. 

Today, there was no way he could do his duty. His legs were stiff and painful. Even the act of getting out of bed took far too long. If something like Ghemor’s assassination happened today, Garak would be long dead by the time he got to him. 

Besides, he did not have the composure to sit through a speech. The idea of being that close to Garak made his chest constrict painfully. It would not do for the Castellan’s personal physician to have an episode of emotional catalepsy in front of the ‘casts. 

He sent a communiqué to Doctor Lentek, who filled his duties as the Castellan’s physician when he could not. Then he contacted Nurse Mera, asking her to reschedule appointments that were not urgent and refer the remaining patients to other doctors. Relieved of his duties for the day, he considered what to do. A bath might do him good. Even sleeping a little more would not hurt. The one thing he knew would make him worse was the one he chose. He turned on the ‘casts. 

Flipping through them confirmed his expectations. All they were talking about was the discovery in Rogarin province. There was much speculation of what the structure was, so they seemed not to know what Garak had told him last night. Still, more information had leaked from the geologists who had found the site. One ‘cast had gotten hold of enough information to make a holographic model of the underground chamber. Parmak stared at this monstrous structure, rendered in shining blue lines and shrunken down so it was barely as tall as the presenter. The outer dimensions were square but for the slightly domed ceiling. Each corner was filled up with cylinders that must be industrial cooling units. Cross-beams made up several different levels, supporting platforms and walk-ways. On the former, there was more machinery, and amongst it, the slabs. He counted a hundred on each platform. The holo-modeller had only drawn three levels with six platforms each. Garak had said ten thousand bodies – either the platforms were considerably bigger, or they had drawn far too few. Parmak imagined standing on one of them, with bodies before you, above you, below you. The cold would make your breath mist at first, until your body took on the same temperature as its surroundings. It would be cold enough to make you sluggish.

Had Garak ever stood there, looking out over the dead? Had he gone there yesterday and seen them, no longer caught in the moments of death, but breaking down and coming apart? What had he felt? Horror, surely, and sadness. Parmak knew Garak well enough to know that he was a man of empathy, despite all the Order’s attempts to remove that trait. But had that been all he had felt? Had he feared for his own position, or cursed the people who had found this place? Had he really thought of the people who had been laid out underground like items in an archive? Parmak could not say. It made the queasiness that had been threatening to accost him since waking up grow into proper nausea. 

He did not bother to get dressed. Had it not been for the sour taste in his mouth, he might not have even cleaned his teeth, but it reminded him too much of the labour camp to ignore. He was still in his nightshirt, sitting wrapped in a blanket, his hand compulsively stroking his braid, when the announcement he knew was coming happened. 

‘ _We go now to Tarlak, where Castellan Elim Garak is about to make a statement._ ’ 

The image swapped from the studio to a podium that Parmak knew well. It was three floors down, on the other side of the residence. There was no sign of Garak yet - the ‘cast must be desperate to catch every part of the speech to cut over so soon. A tech was still looking over the microphones at the lectern. In this unusually broad shot, Parmak could see two other persons standing to the side. Khevet, one of Garak’s bodyguards, was closest to the lectern, though at a respectable distance. Beside him stood Doctor Lentek. Parmak doubted most viewers would notice, but some of the reporters that regularly covered the Castellan’s speeches might reflect on his absence. 

The tech hurried aside and a door opened. Akret entered first, taking her place beside Doctor Lentek. Then came Garak, flanked by two CIB men. The screen went into a closeup, catching how Garak took his place in front of the lectern, obscuring the emblem of the Cardassian Union. Gravely, he looked out over the room and then straight in the camera. Parmak felt a shiver go through him. It was like his brain was struggling to analyse what he was seeing. It saw both tormentor and lover, and it could not reconcile the two. 

‘ _My fellow Cardassians. The discovery of a large number of bodies in Rogarin province saddens me greatly. It is a situation of the most tragic kind._ ’ 

A pause – a glance down on his PADD. His gaze was not as sharp when he looked up again. 

‘ _We can now confirm that the underground structure found in Rogarin province is a morgue built under the remit of the Obsidian Order._ ’ 

Even with the microphones firmly directed away from the audience of reporters, their startled gasps could be heard. Garak did not stop or allow the reaction to develop. 

‘ _The bodies that have been found are most likely those of people targeted and disappeared by the Obsidian Order. Through analysis of the building materials, it is possible to estimate the morgue’s construction to around Union year 720. This far, nine thousand three-hundred and seventy-three bodies have been recovered. The remains of three-thousand five-hundred and twenty-eight men, two-thousand seven-hundred and thirty-two women, eight-hundred and ninety adults where sex is yet to be determined, and seven-hundred and nineteen children have been recovered, as well as one thousand five-hundred and four Bajorans: four-hundred and seventy men, six-hundred ninety-five women, a hundred and twenty-five children and three-hundred and fourteen where sex and age has not yet been determined._ ’ 

Another pause. Was this a rhetorical flourish or a moment to collect himself?

‘ _The identification of these individuals are our upmost priority. While many bodies were found with tags likely used by the Obsidian Order to identify them, the computer system to which that these tags were connected has been lost. I have therefore instructed the Ministry of Health to convene the Union’s leading pathologists to work on the identification. Starting from tomorrow, we will open a genetic database to aid in this. Any citizen who believe that a blood-relative may have died in Order custody between the years of 720 and 755 will be able to add their DNA on a purely voluntary basis. This database will_ only _be used in identifying remains found in the Obsidian Order site in Rogarin province. Anyone who wishes to submit a sample should speak to their primary physician. We also encourage anyone who believe they have information about possible victims to submit a description, complete with distinguishing features, to their local Constabulary._ ’ 

Garak looked up again. 

‘ _This discovery is a reminder of our Union’s darkest past. It is my hope that we can restore the names and the dignity to these persons as soon as possible._ ’ 

He turned away from the lectern. The camera caught his concerned frown for a short moment before the CIB agents fell into step and hid him from the camera. 

Parmak put his head back. The number ten thousand that Garak had mentioned last night had been too big for him to quite visualise. Now, that number had been broken down into its constituent parts. Men, women, children, perhaps whole families. Cardassians and Bajorans – the reach of the Obsidian Order was an equaliser of the worst sort. Still, he could not quite imagine all those people. There had been over eight hundred children – could he picture eight hundred children? He tried to recall the large choirs of Cardassian Pioneers that the old regime had had perform patriotic songs at military parades and Union days. Almost a hundred children, the youngest only six, the oldest just under the age of emergence, lined up in their little uniforms. He tried to imagine such a choir times eight. It made his throat ache. Unwillingly, his face spasmed. He covered his mouth, but the sob escaped nevertheless. His eyes were still raw from crying, and the salty tears stung the skin on his cheeks. Parmak put his face in his hands and wept. He wept until he felt exhausted and weak. The ‘casts were still running. He wiped his eyes and tried to gather what was going on. Two news-analysts were discussing the Castellan’s speech. Parmak wanted to hear what they had to say, but he was in no state for it right now. What he required was distance and dullness. 

Slower than usual, he went over to the drinks cabinet and retrieved a glass and a bottle of _kanar_. He downed the first glass in one go, grimacing at the strength of it. Pouring a second one, he took the bottle with him to the sofa. He expected he’d need it.

⁂

The days merged into one another. Time seemed to move differently in this room, isolated from the rest of Cardassia. He barely put foot outside it. Getting out of bed was a struggle. Walking any distance longer than from the sofa to the bathroom, from the bed to the drinks cabinet, felt impossible. He rationed the kanar, drinking only enough to keep him in the first stages of intoxication. It was not enough to desensitise him completely, but it dulled him. He was inhabiting that strange ghost world that would swallow him up at times, where it felt like he was back in the labour camp. He would eat as little as possible, as if there was not a fully-staffed kitchen and well-programmed replicators in the building. The memories were pushing at him, urging him to remember. He was aware of every mark on his body: the welts on his back, the badly healed bones on his hands, the scars across his skin. Pain shot through his legs and spine whenever he tried to walk. It was soon apparent that he was not in a state to do anything. He sent a message to ask Lentek to continue filling in for him, and asked a colleague to take on the patients from his practice for now. He did not respond to either reply. He could not think of anything to say.

The ‘casts served as a view-screen to the outside world. He turned them off only to sleep, although sometimes he would doze off while watching. The Cardassian public’s reactions were unfolding, and the discussions in the newsrooms and ‘cast-studios were put on hold. In their place came footage of the streets. Make-shift processions of people carrying the portraits of missing relatives snaked through the alleys of Tor. Mass vigils took place around the city – the university campus, outside ministry buildings, even in the memorial garden among the monuments built from the ruins of Tain’s house. Vases and wreaths of perek flowers were placed in windows of shops and homes. They would be visible in the background whenever journalists made reports from outdoors. The price of _perek_ flowers climbed as the supply shrunk. 

Soon, an official mourning ceremony was announced, to be held among the Tarlak memorials. All the large ‘casts covered it in its entirety. Swathed in blankets, Parmak watched every official in the Union Capital cut their hand over the almost ten-thousand _perek_ flowers – one for every body recovered. The Castellan was the last to perform the ritual. At first, Parmak looked away, but eventually he looked up, spurred on by curiosity or masochism. Garak’s dark suit made his hair seem greyer and his face paler. He looked solemn as he ran the blade over his palm, but as the blood dripped onto the petals, he closed his eyes. Parmak looked away, at his own palm. In the right light, he could still see the scar where he had cut himself on the monuments Garak had been building. It had been the first time after the Fire he had said the words of mourning. During the vigils arranged around the city, phrases like “the missing” and “the victims of the old regime” had taken the place of names. The official memorial had not contained any of the words at all. There had been no microphones, but neither had Parmak seen anyone’s lips moving. Did it count, if you did not say the names of the dead? Would the spirits know that they were the ones being mourned?

He was not the only one to think that. On the public opinion segments that some ‘casts ran, the silence was criticised. Some argued that the ritual had no meaning without the names. Others said not saying anything became a way of taking away their identities yet again. A few asked if it was right to conduct the vigils at all. For all they knew, the victims they had found might have been as culpable as their killers. It came close to expressing that concern that constantly lay under the surface these days: during the old regime, even the victims might also have been perpetrators. 

No one articulated it outright, although to Parmak, that made little difference. He had done things that went against his principles. None of them had been drastic, and at the time he had seen it as better to go along with them so that he could help in other ways. At the time, he had absolved himself of the fact that he had performed physical assessments on men being drafted by sometimes exaggerating some pathology or, occasionally, outright forging draft exemption. It had seemed that that balanced the scales. But of course it hadn’t. Many of the recruits he had signed off on would have killed and would have died. Those deaths were a way of covering up the handful of exceptions, when he had gone against his orders and kept someone from being drafted. It was only one of many examples. How many times had he chosen to help the wrong person? When he saved medicine for those he thought needed it, had he inadvertently denied it to someone else? 

And that was just before his arrest. When he had first come to the labour camp, he had tried to help. Some of it was trivial enough not to get him into trouble: checking on a twisted ankle, making a sling for an injured arm, giving a dehydrated fellow prisoner some of his water. It had not seemed enough. His assignment as a medical orderly sometimes gave him opportunities to take things that were useful. He had pocketed a tube of antiseptic cream for an old man whose shedding had gone badly. He had stolen compresses to help someone with blisters. He had taken a small bottle of antipyretics to control a young inmate’s fever response. Every time, he had been caught. Every time, he had been punished. Eventually, he had stopped trying to help other prisoners. That was probably what had kept him alive. Now, all that meant was that he could feel the pain they had penalised him with. His feet throbbed, as if they had just been whipped. The phantom taste of blood was in his mouth. 

The government was slow to release information, but the officials knew the public’s thirst for news. Someone in the Ministry of Health leaked a handful of post-mortem results. The details cascaded through the ‘casts. More than one anchor had to stop and compose themselves when reporting the injuries found on the bodies. Claws had been pulled out, scales had been shaved off. One victim had every bone in their arm broken. Another had, even before decomposition, been so mishandled that the pathologists had trouble identifying the sex of the body. Parmak listened, swinging between numbness and horror. Many of the injuries felt all too familiar – he had either endured them himself or seen the marks of them on others. Others, he had never heard of. With those, he was torn between relief that he had never been exposed to them and alarm that he could have been. It made his body hurt in new ways. Eventually, he got out the spare medkit he kept in a cupboard and ran a scan of his vitals. They were not outright alarming, but less unambiguously good than he had hoped. 

Another press-conference was arranged in the residence. Parmak learned about it on the ‘casts – no one came to inform him this time. For days, the only people he had seen were the staff who would bring him his meals. Sometimes, Parmak would hear footsteps from the adjacent bedroom. Then, he would stop and listen, waiting for the door-chime, but to his relief, it never came. Even seeing Garak on the screen made him feel paralysed with fear. Afterwards, he did not quite remember what he had said or which questions had been asked by the reporters. However, Garak’s face was engrained in his mind. For all his composed features, Parmak could not see the man he loved, only the man who had almost cost him his life. His voice echoed through the memories of his torture. The years they had spent together since the Fire seemed unreal. How had they fallen in love? he wondered. How had he looked at this man who had done those things to him and been able to put it aside? 

Those thoughts spread through him and infected his dreams. That night, he woke in a panic, certain he was being watched. He searched the room, ripping aside curtains and throwing open wardrobes. He traced the walls with his hands to make sure no one was hiding in the shadows. There was nothing to find, except perhaps the door. It was still closed and the panel on the side of the door-frame was still indicating it was locked. That did not mean anything - it could still be opened. With the right override codes, or enough ingenuity… 

The frantic search changed character. He got out the medkit and looked through the contents. There must be something thin and sharp enough for this. He tore the sterile covering off a lancet and inspected it. It was slim enough that he could force it under the door-panel and disrupt the circuits. Hopefully that would make the door impossible to open. He would need something to put around the lancet, though. Something non-conductive – rubber would be best. There must be something in here, something thicker than gloves… He thought he had seen a bulb syringe when he took out the tricorder the other day. There! The opening of it was not large enough to force the lancet handle into, but if he cut the bulb open, he should be able to cover the handle. As long as he made sure to grip it properly…

Sense caught up with him. His pulse was still racing and his breathing was coming in short gasps, but his mind was clearing. He saw his plan for what it was now. He had been planning to disrupt technology he barely understood with a hastily created tool. A moment ago, it had seemed like the only thing he could do to keep the threat out. Now, it seemed absurd and dangerous. A tampered lock would send guards running his way. The CIB might even get involved. That was if he managed to disrupt the door circuits in the first place. All that it would take was that he failed to wrap the lancet properly or that the rubber slipped a fraction, and he would get an electric shock nasty enough to cause serious harm. It might even stop his heart. 

The lancet clattered onto the table. It felt like he was choking. He stumbled towards the bed, reaching out to find his way. When his hands connected with bedpost, he tried to sit down on the side of the bed, but he was not quite close enough. He slipped off and toppled onto the floor. A cry escaped him. He fought the urge to try to get up at once. Instead, he made himself lie still and listen. From where he lay, he could make out the lights of the door-panel. He could hear no footsteps, and the panel’s lights did not change colour. His cry might not have been loud enough to carry through the wall or disturb Garak’s sleep. Perhaps he was not there at all, but still working. 

When his breathing started to calm down, Parmak assessed the damage done. He was in pain, but not much more than before he fell. He had fallen part backwards, part sideways, and he had not hit his head. He could move his arms and his legs, so nothing seemed to be broken or dislocated. At most, he would have some nasty bruises. Slowly, he pushed himself onto his elbows, then rolled onto his hip and managed to sit up. Again he looked to the door. It did not seem so threatening now. In fact, he found himself half-wishing it would open. Parmak leaned his head against the bed and closed his eyes. What he felt was almost worse than the blind panic from a minute ago. Fearing for his life, however irrationally, was unpleasant, but it was straightforward. Missing the man who scared him so was hard to accept. The twisted version of Garak he had imagined hiding in the shadows had dissolved, and now he remembered him more as he truly was. There was the duplicity and the evasiveness and the sarcasm, but also the wit, the compassion, that understated tenderness that he loved so much. He wanted Garak to come through that door and sit down by him. How could he both long for his presence and be frightened by the thought of it? It would be so much easier to just hate him. 

With an effort, Parmak pulled himself up onto the bed. He watched the door, hoping and fearing it would open, until finally, his eyelids grew too heavy.

⁂

It was the sound of his communicator that woke him. Stiff and disorientated, he scrambled for it. He was surprised to see that the name attached to the message was Lentek.

_\- When convenient, please come to the infirmary._

Parmak closed his eyes and composed himself. “When convenient” often meant “at once”. He felt a stab of concern. What had happened? Why would Doctor Lentek feel the need to call him in? He threw on his clothes as quickly as he could and set off. 

The infirmary was placed in the middle of the residence centrally, so it could be reached easily from any part of the building. It was made up of a number of adjoining room, including a laboratory and a one-bed ward. The door-chime he pushed led to the consultation room that also functioned as an office. The door opened almost at once. 

Lentek was sitting at the desk, swinging her foot as she looked through something on a PADD. When he stepped inside, she looked up with a smile. 

‘Doctor Parmak.’ Seeing how he looked toward the door leading to the ward, she said: ‘I just need your thumbprint.’ She picked up the PADD. ‘I’ve filled in some requisitions.’ 

Parmak sat down and looked through the list. It was the kind of thing they always needed more of – gloves, sterile wipes, basic medications. Now that he saw the requisitions, Parmak remembered that some time ago, he had noticed that they were running low. He authorised the list and handed back the PADD. 

‘Thank you for doing that,’ he said. 

‘Not a problem,’ Lentek said. Parmak hesitated before speaking. 

‘How has it been, these past few days?’ 

Lentek gave him a meaningful look - she saw what the impersonal construction was hiding.

‘You mean, how has the Castellan been?’ she said. 

Parmak sighed. 

‘Yes.’ 

‘I’ve seen him a few times. Nothing particularly serious. He’s complained of headaches and difficulty sleeping. I gave him dorzodine and agatosene, as per your notes.’ 

‘Good.’ Parmak rubbed his palms against his trousers. ‘It’s a good sign that he spoke to you about that. He tends to be quite… reticent.’ 

‘I know,’ Lentek said. Her voice had changed now, becoming softer. ‘Perhaps he has realised that that is not a good idea.’ 

Parmak looked up. Lentek was looking straight at him. 

‘I’ve been meaning to come see you,’ she said. ‘It looks like I should have done it sooner.’ 

Parmak let his guard down. She was right, he knew. 

‘This business with the bodies… it’s affected me.’ 

Lentek shifted, turning her chair and leaning one elbow on the desk, hands clasped. Had he not felt so terrible, Parmak would have found it amusing, because that was his pose. At times it was so evident that Lentek had spent the early years of her career as a junior doctor under him. The context of their meeting had shifted now. They were no longer two colleagues, but doctor and patient. His seniority meant nothing. He was only an old man, bent with pain and grief. 

‘What do you mean when you say that?’ she asked. Parmak sighed. 

‘It’s all over the ‘casts, all the time. It’s dredged up old things. Physical and mental.’ 

‘What kind of symptoms have you been having?’ 

He collected his thoughts. 

‘Apathy, disorientation, low mood, lack of appetite, palpitations, hyperventilation, joint pain, back pain…’ None of it seemed to quite describe the prison his mind and his body had become. 

‘What medications are you on?’ 

‘Usually, 1.5 cc’s of triptacederine, 15 cc’s of pamidosyn, 10 cc’s of minonalin, 20 cc’s of angiolin. But in the past few days, I haven’t been taking them.’ 

Lentek raised her brow-ridges. 

‘None of them?’ 

‘None,’ Parmak said. ‘I know it’s not ideal, but…’ But what? Even if he knew full well it was not true, intoxication had felt more efficient or at least easier. He doubted he would drink enough to cause any real damage, but if he got confused and thought he had not taken his medication when he in fact had, he could end up overdosing. Besides, the ampoules were back in the main bedchamber, in a locked drawer at his side of the bed. He had not been able to bear the thought of entering the room to retrieve it. He could explain none of that.

Lentek exhaled and rubbed the ridges at her temple. 

‘When did you last take them?’ 

How long had it been? He struggled to count the days. 

‘Four days.’ Not so odd that he had felt like he was getting worse and worse. He usually knew better than to do something so stupid. Now, he could make out the complex web of causes, each one feeding into the last. The shock of what he had learned had set off the pain and distress, which in turn had made him forget the medications, which had then made the initial problem worse. On top of that, there was the issue of any damage he might inadvertently have done to himself. He expected that four days without pamidosyn would not be enough to drastically reduce his bone density, but the pain usually managed by the triptacederine might obscure any injuries. 

Lentek saved him from having to ask. 

‘Shall I look you over?’ 

He nodded. 

‘I think it would be for the best.’ 

She stood up, but lingered at the desk until he was on his feet. As they crossed to the biobed, she paused several times, seemingly to make sure he did not fall. It was something of a relief that she did not ask him to undress, but relied mainly on scanners. The only time she touched him was to assess the movement in his legs (even worse than usual). It was not much more than a cursory examination, lasting only a few minutes, but in her shoes, Parmak would have done much the same. 

Once Lentek stepped away from the biobed, he sat up. 

‘How am I doing?’ 

‘I’d hesitate to say “well”,’ Lentek said, ‘but there’s nothing immediately dangerous. The best thing you can do is to do is start taking your medications again.’ 

‘I will.’ 

‘Who is your primary physician?’ 

‘Doctor Ertak, at the South Paldar Hospital,’ Parmak said. 

‘Ah,’ Lentek said in recognition. ‘I know her. We did some of the same courses that Starfleet Medical put on during the reconstruction.’

Parmak managed a smile. 

‘I’m not surprised.’

Ertak must be the same age as Lentek – she too had only just gotten her medical license when the Dominion took over. To Parmak, they both seemed like a new kind of doctor, maybe because of the Federation training they had both had just after the Fire. It was one of the things that had led him to recommend Lentek for the position as his stand-in, and one of the reasons why he had become Ertak’s patient. Despite how common those types of symptoms were, there were not many doctors of the old Cardassian model who knew how to take the mental and physical aftermaths of torture and long-time imprisonment into account. 

‘I suggest you make an appointment. It’d be a good idea for you to have a proper examination.’ 

‘You’re probably right,’ Parmak said. ‘I’ll do that.’ Carefully, he got down from the biobed. ‘Would you be able to give me new ampoules? I left my old ones in the Coranum house,' he lied. 

‘I should double-check the dosages in your records,’ she said hesitantly. Parmak nodded, eager to show that he was not offended. 

‘Of course. You have my permission to access them.’ 

She crossed to the desk and called them up on the console. 

‘Triptacederine, angiolin, pamidosyn and minonalin,’ she read. She jotted it down on a PADD and went over to the medicine cabinet. Soon she returned with a case and a hypospray. 

‘Thank you,’ Parmak said. Lentek handed over the hypospray and opened the case. 

‘Take the first dose now. I want to know that you’ve done it.’ 

‘Naturally.’ Even if his fingers were clumsier than usual, he managed to load the hypospray, set the dosage and inject it. He repeated it with each ampoule. Once he had taken them all, Lentek closed the case again and gave it to him. 

‘Keep taking them. Once a day, in the morning. And get in touch with Doctor Ertak.’ 

‘I will,’ Parmak promised. He was feeling strange. It was a little disorientating to not feel the pain that he had been so aware of.

‘If you start feeling worse or get any new symptoms, you can always contact me too.’ 

Parmak nodded, collected his cane and stood up. 

‘Thank you, Lentek.’ 

She smiled. 

‘Take care of yourself, Doctor Parmak,’ she said. ‘Perhaps don’t watch the ‘casts all the time.’ 

Parmak smiled. It was not bad advice. 

The walk back to his room was easier than the way to the infirmary. His knees and back still hurt, but it was more like the usual ache, not the relentless pain of the last few days. When he entered his bedroom, he put the ampoule case on his bedside table and made his way to the sofa. He booted up the computer console. Out of habit, his fingers found the commands to call up the ‘casts. He stopped himself in mid-motion. _It can’t hurt_ , some part of him said. _You just want to know what’s happening_. 

He moved his finger. Instead, he called up the audio files on the console. He scrolled through them until he saw something that spoke to him: “Cora Ren, Opus 37: fifth sonata for the _repat_ ”. He tapped it and sat back. For a moment, there was complete silence. Then the first drawn-out notes emanated from the speakers. Each vibrated as the bow was expertly moved over the strings. He remembered these sounds from his childhood, when his mother had practiced the _repat_ in the next room. It was the sound that had filled the house, that he had heard after being put to bed, that had accompanied his homework and games. A recorded performance would never be the same, but when he closed his eyes, he felt some small semblance of that comfort. It was more than he had felt for many days.

⁂

The days passed at a different pace now. His waking hours were not formed by the ‘casts. In fact, he had decided to leave the news be altogether. Sometimes, he was tempted to see if there were any developments – there might have been identifications, more protests, political consequences – but he resisted. Instead, he drowned his thoughts in music. He listened to classic recordings of Kasseelian arias, experimental arrangements of Cardassian folk-songs, even a Klingon opera that he found surprisingly good. He even went for a walk around the garden. It surprised him how ordinary it seemed. Somehow he had expected to find perek flowers set up all over it, but here there were no hints of what had happened.

His body started to feel like usual again. The throbbing in his bones was gone and he was no longer distracted by the pounding of his heart. He allowed himself only one glass of _kanar_ a day, if that, and when he drank he would take care to sip slowly. In general, the urge to dull himself was gone. The stiffness and dull aches throughout his body that he always experienced was still there, though. He was becoming accustomed to the idea of going back to work, even seeing Garak again, but being present for the Castellan’s speeches in case of a medical emergency still concerned him. In the past he had always disregarded that thought, but it could be that he had not been fit for that part of his job for a long time. He was reminded of something he would sometimes tell his patients: sometimes, however much we want to do something, we have to accept the limits of the body. Perhaps that was what he needed to do. That thought was something of a relief. 

The third morning after seeing Lentek, Parmak woke up feeling restless. He did not like the idea of spending another day cooped up in this room. What he needed was something approaching normality. He had told himself that he would not go back to work until after he had seen Doctor Ertak, which was scheduled to happen tomorrow, but there were some things he could do. He wrote a message to Lentek and requested the use of his office for a few hours that morning. She responded quickly, saying she would still come to the residence but keep out of the infirmary.

He had decided what he would do by the time he came to the office. He made himself a cup of red leaf tea and called up the database of the Union Capital’s pulmonary screening program. It was the kind of work he felt up to – not uninvolved, but all the same with a routine to it. When the program had started in the early days of Garan’s castellanship, Parmak had been an active participant. He had enjoyed supervising the sessions in Torr. During his career, he had seen all too often how the poor had been issues faulty respirators and would not get treatment for the ensuring illnesses until the dust and pollutants were already killing them. It was a relief to see people line up at the screening clinics they would set up in the most densely populated neighbourhoods. Even when they did though, many were apprehensive – the idea of the state doing anything for them was suspicious. Others were scared, especially the children who did not like the look of the large machines. Often, Parmak and the other doctors would let the medtech perform the scan on them to show nervous patients that it did not hurt. It had not been uncommon that the computer would contain a dozen or more different scans of Parmak’s chest at the end of the day. 

With his current position, supervising the screening program in person was no longer an option. He would still help with reviewing the scans – there was always a backlog in the database that needed clearing up. 

He was rotating on particular image to look closer at a shadow on the patient’s left lung when the door chimed. He looked up, not certain what to do. Then his mind caught up with him. 

‘Enter.’ 

The door slid open. He had braced himself, but the shock he had expected did not come. The Garak standing in the doorway was not smiling, and there was no scheming glint in his eye. Instead, he looked exhausted, closed off. All the energy usually directed outward was turned inwards instead. 

‘I was told you were here,’ he said. ‘May I come in?’ 

Parmak hesitated. 

‘Yes.’ 

Garak stepped inside. 

‘I hope I’m not disturbing you.’

‘No,’ Parmak said, glancing over at the screen. He did not really want to meet his eye. ‘I’m reviewing some scans from the lung screening program.’ 

‘Aren’t you a little too senior for that?’ Garak asked, but there was none of the expected edge in it.

‘I’m happy to do it.’ Parmak circled the shadow on the scan and added the code recommending a follow-up exam. The tumour looked to be in its early stages, and with prompt treatment, the patient would recover well. Saving his work, he closed down the database and turned his attention to the Castellan. He was still standing, hands clasped behind his back. 

‘Will you have a seat?’ Parmak asked. 

Garak sat down. 

‘I had started to worry,’ he said. ‘It was a long time since Doctor Lentek filled in for you so long.’ 

Parmak did not know what to say – apologise, explain, rebut? 

‘I needed some time,’ he said. Garak nodded, seemingly not sure what to say. ‘Has there been any progress in the past few days?’ 

‘Some,’ Garak said. ‘The response to identify the bodies is better than expected.’ He hesitated. ‘That was why I came. I know that some of your friends in the dissident movement are unaccounted for.’ 

‘Yes.’ It came out so quietly he was not sure if Garak had heard him.

‘If you make up a list of their names and anything that might help in identifying them…’ He trailed off. Parmak tried to think. Talok had had both his legs amputated – but so had others. It was not definitive. Thelan had a pin in his left shoulder after a childhood accident. Or was it the right? It was all so long ago… 

‘I’ll try,’ he said, then: ‘Thank you.’ 

‘Don’t thank me yet,’ Garak said. ‘It might lead nowhere.’ 

‘But you thought of them.’ 

Garak’s face tensed for a moment. Parmak shifted in his chair. He could not tell where they stood. 

‘Was there something else?’ he asked, deciding to remain in his professional role. 

‘Yes.’ Garak sounded apprehensive, but he pressed on. ‘I’d like to add my DNA to the genetic database.’ 

Something flared within Parmak. 

‘Are you trying to make this into an attempt to boost your popularity ratings?’ he asked. ‘Or is it some attempt to show people you’re not going to misuse the DNA database?’ 

Garak sighed deeply. 

‘No,’ he said. He did not even seem angry, only resigned. ‘I’d like to enter my DNA in case there is someone in that morgue who shares it.’ 

The spark was put out by a new possibility that made him feel cold. 

‘Elim, is there something you haven’t told me?’ he asked quietly. 

To his surprise and relief, Garak laughed. 

‘I don’t mean a child,’ he said. ‘I can’t rule out that there are relatives of my parents in there.’ 

Parmak opened his mouth to speak, but Garak did not notice.

‘Tain frequently threatened me and my mother with murder. What if there were other illegitimate children where he carried out that threat? And then… there’s Mila’s family. I have tried to find them for the past fifteen years. Not a single one of her relatives seems to have survived the Fire. Perhaps they were unlucky, or… maybe the Order came for them. On Tain’s orders, or for some other reason.’ 

Parmak stared. His mind was working so fast he could not move his body. It had all seemed so easy – he had been the victim, and Garak, however much he had now repented, had been the perpetrator. He could have resisted, but he had not.

Except it was not so easy. Garak was culpable, yes, but he had grown up in the shadow of the Order. He bore the guilt of the things he had done, but he had also been a victim – of his father, of Lok, of the very institutions that had tried to shape him. Garak was only one man. He could not stand against the entire machinery of the Obsidian Order and the State. It had taken the near-destruction of Cardassia to change their society. No, that was not quite true. That change would not have happened without the work done by the people who had come before: the protesters and the dissidents and the people who dared to resist. The names of most were forgotten now, but some were known: Natima Lang, Tekeny Ghemor, Corat Damar. Damar, whose right-hand man during the rebellion had been Garak.

Parmak moved closer. Garak watched him, frowning. A look of surprise spread across his face when Parmak took his hands. 

‘Kelas…’ 

The sound of his name, spoken by that voice, made him feel about to cry. 

‘I’m so sorry,’ Parmak whispered. 

‘No,’ Garak said softly, pressing his hands. ‘You have no reason to be.’ 

Parmak let go of him, trying to collect himself. 

‘I don’t know what kind of sample they want for the database,’ he said. ‘I suppose they must have sent instructions to my surgery…’ 

‘I brought them with me.’ Garak took a PADD from his belt. 

‘Thank you.’ He read through it. ‘It was a good idea,’ he said, ‘doing this through the Ministry of Health.’ People might be wary of doctors, but they trusted them more than law enforcement. 

‘This far, it seems to have worked,’ Garak said. ‘There is the risk that it will undermine their confidence in the medical profession.’ 

‘Only if you misuse the information,’ Parmak pointed out. 

‘We don’t intend to.’ 

He had not thought they would, but he still felt relieved. He stood up. 

‘I’ll get my supplies.’ He collected what he needed on a tray. When he returned, Garak had undone his jacket and slipped an arm out. Neither of them spoke as he put his gloves on and grasped Garak’s arm. When he started cleaning the crook of his arm, he decided to speak. 

‘Have there been any developments in the last few days?’ 

‘Yes,’ Garak said, watching Parmak work. ‘We made the first identifications yesterday. Only two so far.’ 

‘Has the media been told?’ 

Garak inhaled sharply as the needle pierced his skin. 

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘After the families had been informed.’ 

‘Good,’ Parmak said, meaning it. 

‘We got lucky,’ Garak said. ‘It is going to take a long time to identify the bodies. I don’t know if all of them are identifiable.’ He watched as the phial filled with blood. ‘The database will only get us so far. Unless a relative has entered their DNA, it’s useless.’ 

‘There are other ways of identifying people,’ Parmak said, removing the needle and giving Garak a compress to hold. 

‘None of them are as accurate,’ Garak pointed out. ‘Director Kalanis suggested we use what files we have from before the Fire.’ 

Parmak stopped labelling the sample and looked over at him.

‘And what did you say to that?’ he asked, his voice going sharp again.

‘I said it was out of the question. We do not keep our citizens’ genetic information on file anymore. We are not going back to that.’ 

Parmak relaxed. Garak, however, still looked concerned. 

‘The Federation Council contacted me yesterday,’ he said. ‘They are offering to send a team of pathologists to help.’ 

‘You should say yes,’ Parmak said. The doctors who had trained him had always claimed that Cardassian medical science far surpassed any other in the galaxy. The more Parmak saw of Federation medicine, the more he realised how wrong that proud attitude had been. 

But Garak shook his head and discarded the compress onto the tray.

‘It’s out of the question,’ he said and put his jacket on again. 

‘They’ll be a great help,’ Parmak said. ‘Their resources are far better…’ 

‘I cannot let them see Cardassian bodies. There would be outrage.’ 

‘Not all the bodies they found were Cardassian,’ he pointed out. ‘Some were Bajoran. They need to be identified too. And Bajor is part of the Federation now.’ 

‘Will people believe that we’d only let them work on the Bajoran victims?’ Garak asked. ‘It’s a delicate thing.’ 

Parmak let out his frustration in a sigh. 

‘I can’t believe you are considering politics here.’ 

‘I have to,’ Garak said levelly. ‘There are still so much left to do. Now that we’ve found one of these structures, we might be able to analyse the technology and find a way of locating more of them. That amount of machinery will turn up on sensors if we know what to look for. Given time, we might even be able to find the Order’s archive. But I can’t do that if I don’t have the people’s trust.’ 

Parmak deflated. He hated this game of tactical manipulation. He had thought it was something that democracies were free from. Sometimes it felt like there was more of it now than before. It was just hidden better. 

But all the same, he knew Garak had a point. 

‘Do you?’ he asked. ‘Have their trust?’ 

Garak sighed. 

‘To some extent,’ he said. ‘There have been some positive pieces on the ‘casts about my handling of the situation. Others…’ He paused to compose himself. ‘There have been question raised about my… previous allegiances.’ 

Parmak let out his breath slowly. He found himself torn between two posts: his belief that the crimes of the old regime needed to be addressed and his love for Garak. 

‘I know that you didn’t cover up the location of that structure,’ he said softly, ‘but I think you still have to explain why you never mentioned its existence.’ 

‘I do,’ Garak agreed. ‘I intend to tell the relevant authorities everything I know.’ 

‘Can you do that?’ He did not add anything else, because they both knew what there might be – “and not compromise your position”, “without giving away your own secrets”, “considering you have lied for so long”. 

‘I need to try,’ Garak said. ‘It’s the only way to clear my name.’ 

Parmak bit his lip. 

‘Elim. It won’t clear your name.’

‘No. You’re right. Not my name, but… maybe my conscience.’

Parmak put his hand over Garak’s. He met his eye. It no longer made Parmak want to back away. 

‘If you won’t invite the pathologists, ask the Federation to send engineers,’ he said. ‘You’ll need all the help you can get to figure out a way of finding more Order locations.’ 

Garak smiled a little. 

‘That is an excellent idea.’ He turned his hand and grasped Parmak’s. ‘I have missed you.’ 

Parmak did not know quite what to say. 

‘I just wish it was easier,’ he said finally. ‘I wish the past could… disappear.’ 

‘It never will,’ Garak said. ‘For better or for worse.’ He looked him in the eye. ‘Whatever time you need, Kelas, you will have.’ 

Parmak’s throat ached with the beginnings of a sob. He did not want time. He wanted to not feel this way ever again. But there was no way around it. Healing did not happen overnight, not even decades after the wound had been inflicted. 

As if it was a fragile thing, Garak picked up his hand and kissed it. Parmak edged closer. His lips envied his palm. 

The kiss was so light it was not much more than their lips brushing against each other. It still brought tears to Parmak’s eyes. Garak was the one to break the kiss and embrace him. Parmak leaned against him, clinging to his jacket. Finally he whispered: 

‘I need to arrange the transport of that sample…’ 

Reluctantly, Garak let go of him. 

‘Of course.’ 

They looked at each other. 

‘Will I see you at dinner?’ Garak asked. 

Parmak hesitated. 

‘I…’ He wanted to, but he did not know if he could. This in-between-feeling, far removed from the horror he had felt before but not quite at forgiveness yet, was painful. Right now, he wanted nothing more than to be close to him, dine with him, sleep at his side. He just could not guarantee that that would be the case in a few hours’ time. ‘Can I let you know, closer to the time?’ 

Garak nodded. There was a brief look of disappointment on his face, but it passed fast. 

‘Of course.’ 

‘It’s just…’ 

‘I understand,’ he said gently. Parmak exhaled, frustrated and grateful all at the same time. Garak pressed his hand between both of his. ‘I will let you continue with your work.’ 

He felt the urge to keep him there, kiss him harder and deeper and not let go. Their eyes met. Parmak managed a smile. There was no rush. There would be time for all of that, whenever he was ready. He covered Garak’s hands with his and pressed them back. 

‘I’ll see you later.’ 

Garak held onto him a moment longer. When he let go, it seemed to take real effort. He stood up, but hesitated. Slowly, he leaned down and planted a kiss on the centre of Parmak’s chufa. Parmak looked up and held his gaze. Garak smiled. 

‘Later, then.’ 

He turned away, shaking his head as if admonishing himself for lingering. Parmak watched him go over to the door, open it and step through it. Then the door closed, leaving him on his own. He tried to name what he felt, but it was hard. It was all muddled up, anticipation and love and regret and fear becoming one. The future frightened him, with all the things it might bring, for him and Garak and Cardassia. 

He took a deep breath and let it out again. The future was not his concern right now, he reminded himself. He did not even have to decide yet whether to meet Garak tonight. He turned back to the computer and booted up the screening database. It would keep him distracted for a while.


End file.
